On Friday, The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin and Eno Sarris combined to publish an autopsy of the San Diego Padres. As somebody who has tracked the intertwining courses of the dramatic, erratic rebuilds in Chicago and San Diego, one line jumped out to me:
Meanwhile, the team’s unraveling is bringing scrutiny to the GM who handpicked Tingler and who has yet to oversee a winning record in a full season.
This felt like a damning sentence, but because the fortunes of the White Sox and Padres have often run on parallel tracks, the same could've been said about Rick Hahn, who assumed the GM position with the White Sox two seasons earlier than Preller. He also saw his first attempt at rebuilding collapse in embarrassing fashion, thanks in part to the same elements, like a need for costly veteran patches who didn't fit and a manager who was way in over his head.
And look at the White Sox now!
That's said somewhat tongue in cheek, but when you read the rest of the story, you can see the same markers of dysfunction that finally led the White Sox to blow it up -- a jumbled organizational hierarchy, a lack of cohesion on the roster, a manager with a kick-me sign on his back, stalled prospects who flourished elsewhere.
The rebuild might've been a lengthy detour from competition, but at least they got a thorough detox out of it. The White Sox's next core had time to get used to each other out of the spotlight. Rick Renteria doesn't get enough credit for establishing a durable set of standards during a period of intentional losing. When the White Sox finally committed to adding good, important veterans, they all found their places. Only Dallas Keuchel grumbled, but after two years, two managers and two kinds of performances, I think we can just call Dallas Keuchel a grumbler. In fact, the structural integrity was so sound that it was able to withstand the risks of the Tony La Russa hiring, then leverage the strengths.
The result is a postseason appearance that feels durable the way other winning seasons didn't. We shouldn't overlook the weakness of the AL Central, which had no other teams finish over .500, and the Twins are passed out in the corner as a cautionary tale of a buckled foundation. Still, the White Sox got in their own way so often over the previous decade that they turned the Central into a six-team division. It turns out the path to the top is so much easier when you don't have to plow through heaping piles of baggage and BS.
This came to mind when listening to Steve Stone get surprisingly emotional after the regular-season finale.
The last time we heard a shaking voice in the booth, Stone was sitting quietly alongside it, contemplating how or whether to connect with a sobbing Hawk Harrelson. Their relationship was famously distant, and not just figuratively. Over on the Yankees braodcast, Michael Kay and Ken Singleton spent time after Singleton's retirement announcement on Saturday remembering how far apart Stone and Harrelson sat, and how they never looked at each other.
— Jim Margalus (@SoxMachine) October 4, 2021
Not everybody cares for the off-the-wall tangents between Stone and Jason Benetti, but everybody can agree that the broadcast sounds healthier, more vibrant, more sustainable. Stone is so steadfast in stiff-arming sentiment that I'd only expect to hear this kind of emotion during a retirement announcement, which makes a small slice of my brain wonder if that's what we heard.
With nothing else to reinforce that notion, I'm left to treat it more like tears of joy. The White Sox might have plenty of ways to improve, but they're a lot better at making and surviving tough decisions, and that's a big part of the battle. Now they're entering a second consecutive postseason for the first time in franchise history, and they're a credible pick to win it all. Further nit-picking can wait until the Offseason Plan Project. If Stone is finally letting his guard down, perhaps it's a signal for everybody to do the same.
(Photo by Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports)
